


Grant Me (the Aspect of)

by novashyperion



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: 3 am fics, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Family Drama, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, I don't know, Other, Pre-Ending/Patching Up with Meg&Than, Short Fics, Speculative Childhood, no beta we die like zagreus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27737512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novashyperion/pseuds/novashyperion
Summary: It slew Titans once, this thing, tiny as it is. Thrown aside for bigger means despite its triumphs. It fits perfectly in Zagreus’ hand. At home despite how far he seeks to run.-Both son and spear may mirror the God of the Dead.
Relationships: Hades & Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	Grant Me (the Aspect of)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [burning, like sorrow in a heavy heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27633784) by [thir13enth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth). 



> idk it's 3 am. It's Cat's fault

The Eternal Spear sits heavy in Zagreus’ hands. 

It’s light for what it is, for who used to carry it. Small, too, which gives Zagreus pause to wonder as to when his father might have ever been anything but the overbearing shadow he is now. He can’t imagine Varatha in his father’s grip. The way it must have disappeared under his hands and his gaze, surely shattered if he holds too fast. He wonders if where his palm and fingers lay on its body, is the same place his father burned his grip into it.

It slew Titans once, this thing, tiny as it is. Thrown aside for bigger means despite its triumphs. It fits perfectly in Zagreus’ hand. At home despite how far he seeks to run. 

Spears aren’t his main weapon of choice. Achilles trained him in various weaponry, far exceeding his horizons despite the walls around them. He’d put the blade back together himself, gave it a piece of him, and became familiar with its weight like a third limb. 

Varatha is different. He struggles with it a while. Partly out of clumsiness, and partly out of spite. He’d sworn up and down, night after night, still searing with the aftermath of an argument, one of many, one of countless to come, that he’d never be like his father. He’d spoken the promise in every mutter, in every way, even as he watched the cold shutter across Meg’s face, and the way Than seemed to turn away. The piling paperwork, the scattering, huddled shades, and even Cerberus’ unhappy whine. He’d never be like his father, he’d said. Never, as he reached for his spear.

He’ll never be like his father, he thinks, as the phantom of another’s hand guides Varatha through a wretch. 

Skelly is hardly a Titan (as far as he knows anyway), but when sweat digs into his eyes, he almost wonders if he’s seeing what his father saw, staring up the barrel of Varatha’s form. It weighs in his palm. It hums, at times, seeking battle, pulling him forward again and again. It’s almost as desperate to leave as he is, if only to sweep the halls of the Underworld, seeking Titans’ blood. 

Varatha is familiar. Zagreus can scarcely feel the frustration from before the more times he leaps into Tartarus, shoving his way through chamber after chamber. It swings freely in his hands, coming back like it knows him above all else. 

When he holds it, he can dream. In those brief moments he takes to catch his breath, lingering just for a second before a chamber door. The imprint of his feet just lightly scorching the stone. He can think of his father, and his stretching shadow. The dark of it filling up along the floors and walls, deep and shadowy, and comforting like Night. A trail of cinders marking the places it had once fallen, as steps followed suit. When he’d come of age to learn, his father had already been looking elsewhere. Always elsewhere. Nothing in front of him ever seemed good enough. Some days it was bitter. The quick change that overcame him. The way his father had once guided his hand, making symbols on parchment, to thundering against the wood of his desk. 

The hands that held this spear, that reached for it, falling away. The chasm of endless cycles that chilled the warmth that once resided there to dying embers. 

  
What better place then, Zagreus thinks, tongue sour and sharp, for things that die to come to other than under the watchful eye of the God of Dead himself. His father knows ruin best of all. 

He defeats his father. Fails and wins, again and again and again. He pours through the Underworld faster than even Asphodel can burn. He - hesitates for a moment when he reaches for Varatha. 

The smudge of old fingerprints fade in and out on its body. It hums and asks for an offering. Zagreus hesitates for only one more moment before he unlocks its other form. Hades’ own. It drops into his hand, natural as ever. Varatha hungers for more, for what it’s been given a taste of since birth. It urges him on, unknowing, maybe knowing best of all, where their goals both lay. 

He wonders, briefly, which of them was the aspect granted to. Still slicing through the overbearing walls, still meeting the one that cast them aside. Still, under all the hunger, wanting what had once been.

Zagreus grips Varatha tighter and presses forward.

**Author's Note:**

> i woke up randomly and thought "do you think when Zagreus uses Varatha he can imagine, in some tiny, stupid way, he and his father get along". Idk if that even makes sense. when i'm coherent i'll prob rewrite it


End file.
